Tag: US law

You may have missed it, but recently a US judge made a ruling on an appeal by Microsoft with regards to providing email data for a user which was stored in an Irish data centre.

So what does this mean and why do you care ?

Well the essence of the case is that a judge has agreed that Microsoft should release data stored on servers in Ireland due to a US Search warrant. This appeal was seen as a test case for US companies to show European / Worldwide customers that their data was protected by the same laws of the land as where it was stored.

So what does it mean that the judge rules against the appeal and deemed the search warrant valid ?

It means that European law was overruled. European law states that only a local court of jurisdiction can make this decision. Essentially the US position is that although the emails in question were physically outside of the US they were under the control of a US company that did fall under US jurisdiction which must therefore submit to US law.

So even though the server is in Ireland, the email is in Ireland, and it has never passed through the US legal jurisdiction is being claimed by the US ?

Yes, this is correct

So why should you care ?

All non US companies should care about this ruling. It means that if they store data with a service provider that is a US Inc that this data could be subject to the right of search and seizure irrespective of its physical locality.

So what are my choices ?

If you store sensitive data on the Cloud or have data that if unavailable would be detrimental to your business then you should consider a private Enterprise File Sync and Share solution or investigate local cloud providers if you want a fully SaaS or hybrid model.

Storage Made Easy are a United Kingdom limited company that provide global cloud services for use via SaaS, IaaS, or completely on-premise behind the corporate firewall.